Vanessa Mader and I were the only ones present during the panel, unfortunately (many last-minute cancellations). As far as I know, no recording was made. I will try to prepare a written version, though.
Historical Materialism Istanbul Conference: Three days full of dozens of engaging sessions.
In addition to presenting my paper on Lukács, I was very pleased to participate in a panel marking the 25th anniversary of Praksis, a historical materialist social sciences journal published in Turkish.
Do you happen to be in Istanbul on 2 April, in the wake of the Historical Materialism Conference?
You are kindly invited to our book launch "Versuche Lukács umzudenken", with the participation of our editor Hassan Maarfi Poor, at Istanbul University Faculty of Political Science (2 April, 12:30).
It is always a good idea to watch and listen to Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia to get myself into the mood for talking about Machiavelli and his time.
The first event of the semester: a seminar on Machiavelli, organised by the Political Philosophy Student Club at Istanbul University.
The seminar will focus on a comparative study of the dedicatory letters of The Prince, Discourses on Livy, The Art of War, and Florentine Histories.
A new syllabus:
Readings in International Political Thought: Machiavelli in Text and Social Context
atesuslu.com/wp-content/u...
![Lukács, Georg. "The Ontological bases of human thought and action" [1968]. The Philosophical Forum 7(1), 1975: 22–37](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:orbxnfr4jpmeku6kubn4fvsz/bafkreiaymrjxvbt2kffsaqr2nyqpso7cwa2b546agplaxeogmcwvenyuym)
Lukács, Georg. "The Ontological bases of human thought and action" [1968]. The Philosophical Forum 7(1), 1975: 22–37
The very last talk of my sabbatical period will be on “Lukács’ Social Ontology: Ontological Emergence and the Specificity of the Political". The background text is a very dense paper that Lukács wrote in 1968, in which he condenses, in 16 pages, the 1,600 pages of his Ontology.
Why does every day involve a fight with eduroam?
It is particularly ironic that 10 years ago, Kristi Sweet—who now discusses a colleague’s syllabus with College leadership and proposes the censorship of Plato readings—wrote an article that concludes with the paragraph cited above.
Now tell us about liberal arts under duress, Dr. Sweet. Ridiculous.
2025 in four pictures.
In the end, we keep coming back to the beginning - only to realize that the beginning has already been sublated.
(Stuttgart, January (x2) - Tübingen, April - Stuttgart, December)
Nearing the end of a long sabbatical (16 months!), and preparing my return to Istanbul...
It seems that I will be focusing on the 14th–18th centuries next semester: a course on political thought in that period,and a series of activities on Machiavelli (including at least a seminar and a conference).
2025’s final lecture focused on the early period of Islamic political thought (from its beginnings to al-Farabi). It was, in fact,an online guest lecture at Istanbul University. This gave me the opportunity to read some relatively recent publications on the socio-economic context. 3 wonderful reads:
Il paraît que le sens figuré de « lettré influent » date au moins du début des années 1830 : www.cnrtl.fr/etymologie/m...
Il serait intéressant d’en faire une histoire conceptuelle ; je me demande si cet usage a été répandu lors de la colonisation de l’Indochine.
Good point. Other examples that come to mind:
Electra (tragedy) --> Elektra (opera)
Salome (play) --> Salome (opera)
I don't even like R. Strauss's music, but these are still masterpieces.
Women Writing Knowledge: Philosophy in the Early Modern World – Online Lecture Series, 2026
The Cultures of Philosophy Team at the University of Exeter is excited to announce our new online lecture series, "Women Writing Knowledge: Philosophy in the Early Modern World". In recent years, the…
The deadline for next year's HM Istanbul has been extended!!!
Due to overwhelming demand, we have decided to extend the deadline for submitting paper/panel proposals to 12 December 2025. Make sure to send us your abstracts, comrades!
Further details from the HM Istanbul website below.
John Samuel Harpham - The Intellectual Origins of American Slavery
Sounds exciting:
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[...]How could free persons be made into slaves? John Samuel Harpham shows that English authors found answers to this question in a tradition of ideas that stretched back to the ancient world, where they were most powerfully expressed in Roman law. [...]"
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The true academic method: open 12 papers, read none of them, feel intellectually intimidated
Now it's funny to see it from that angle.
Deadline for HM Istanbul extended!!!
"Dear all, we are delighted by your interest in our conference. In response to requests, we are pleased to announce that we have extended the deadline by 10 days. The new deadline for paper and panel submissions is 3 December 2025."
hmistanbul.org
My final academic talk of 2025 is the fourth session in an online seminar series on Lukács’s Aesthetics (held in Turkish). We have been reading the dense text of The Specificity of the Aesthetic paragraph by paragraph, and we have only just reached the end of the first section of the first chapter.
A wonderful conference on "Hegel, Woman and Feminism" (20229. I was particularly amazed by Ankica Čakardić's speech.
youtube.com/playlist?lis...
I wonder why there is a frenzy about celebrating Spinoza’s birthday this year.
3 The Pavarotti fan
Possesses only a vague knowledge of opera, has heard Pavarotti’s most popular recordings, and prefers him to any other male singer, including Heldentenors or basses.
4. The classical-staging enthusiast
Tolerates poor singing as long as there are kitschy traditional sets onstage.
1. The Callas-fan bot
Is obsessed with Callas, systematically compares every singer—soprano, mezzo, or even tenor—to her, and hates'em all.
2. The contemporary-singer hater
Despises any singer active today, especially Netrebko, and admires anyone who sang before the 1990s—particularly Callas.
The comments section of any opera video on YouTube features a few recurring characters:
1. The Callas-fan bot
2. The contemporary-singer hater
3. The Pavarotti fan
4. The classical-staging enthusiast
Today and tomorrow: “Environmental Humanities Meets the History of Knowledge,” an interdisciplinary workshop organized at the University of Konstanz ( @uni-konstanz.de ). I will speak on “Reconsidering Nature: Lukács’s Ontological Turn and Its Contemporary Relevance,” alongside excellent colleagues.
The 1981 Stuttgart Hegel Congress—where D. Henrich, R. Spaemann, J. Habermas, and O. Pöggeler were keynote speakers, and where philosophers from the Eastern Bloc (Oizerman, Buhr...) presented alongside Gadamer, Rorty, Labarrière, and D’Hondt...
We need to discuss more about the circulation of ideas.
Unfortunately, no, but some of the articles included in that book have already been published in these languages. You can find some of them on Google Scholar: scholar.google.com/scholar?star...
And this one: gyorgylukacs.wordpress.com/wp-content/u...
